


Don't let him die for nothing

by wildmcu



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Hurt/Comfort, Idk how to tag things, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, bucky survived the snap in infinity war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 15:30:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18853888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildmcu/pseuds/wildmcu
Summary: Instead of Clint and Natasha, Bucky and Steve are the ones who get the soul stone. Or... one of them does at least.





	Don't let him die for nothing

**Author's Note:**

> sooooo bucky survived the snap in infinity war and he's just been with steve and the rest of them in the avengers hq

       To say they were all nervous would be an understatement. Bucky, Steve, Natasha, Clint, Tony, Scott, Rhodey, Nebula, Rocket, and Hulk stood in a circle on the platform that would be transporting them to the past. Bucky felt like he couldn’t breathe as he tried to listen to Steve’s pep talk. He and Steve were going with Nebula and Rhodey, dropping them off to retrieve the power stone, then him and Steve were going to get the soul stone…. It was a lot for him to understand. Bucky just kept watching Steve.

       After Thanos had snapped, Bucky watched Steve fall apart as some of the people he loved most in the world were turned to dust. Steve leaned on Bucky like he was the only thing he had left. In the past 5 years, Bucky’s memories and mind had returned to almost normal. He remembered growing up, with the help of Steve, but he also still remembered what he did as The Winter Soldier. He always would. But regardless, Steve helped him. 

 

_ 4 years before _

 

_        Bucky was confused. He woke up from a dream that felt so real… It had to have been a memory. He had to have been reliving something. He dreamt of Steve’s 17th birthday. Bucky had saved up for months to afford a few tubes of paint for Steve. And later that day, Bucky gave Steve his gift and Steve… kissed him. Outright flung his arms around Bucky and kissed him, like he had done that 1,000 times. And Bucky kissed back. Steve had been so happy and even in his dream, Bucky could feel the butterflies in his stomach. And it wasn’t a brief kiss, it turned into a full blown make out session with Steve in Bucky’s lap.  _

_        So naturally.. Bucky was confused. He knew how he felt about Steve. He loved him. But he did a damn good job of hiding it. Steve was all he had left, there was no chance he was going to risk losing him. But now…. Was he remembering another part of his past that had just somehow never come up? Had he and Steve been in love before? And had Steve just been hiding it from him until Bucky remembered himself? As if on queue to his confusion, Bucky hears the loud ass coffee machine beginning to heat up. Steve was awake. Quietly, Bucky padded down the short hallway and stepped into the kitchen. _

_        “Good morning,” Steve said without turning around. Bucky grinned slightly, he couldn’t sneak up on him no matter what. _

_        “Good morning… Can I ask you something? I had a dream..” Bucky appeared a lot more confident then he felt. _

_        “Of course,” Steve said, finally turning around to face Bucky.  _

_        "Okay, do you remember your 17th birthday?” Bucky distracted himself while waiting for a reply. Steve thought for a moment before his face lit up. _

_        “Yes! You bought like 4 or 5 tubes of paint! It was so expensive, I almost told you to take it back.” _

_        Bucky nearly froze. But he didn’t, he stayed calm. For the most part. “Right. And you remember it like pretty well, right?” Steve just nodded. “Did we...kiss that day? Or any day before that?” Bucky’s voice dropped a little in volume. _

_        "Um,” Steve said quietly, “no… we.. never did. Why.. do you ask?” Bucky stayed silent. It hadn’t been a memory. Just a dream. A fantasy. “Did you dream that we did?” Bucky doesn’t know when Steve got closer to him but he was only a foot away from him now. Bucky nodded. He didn’t know what to say. _

_        “Yeah.. I just.. I don’t know, it seemed so real. I thought.. it was.” Bucky turned away from Steve, ready to bolt, but Steve was quicker than that, grabbing his wrist. _

_        “I wish we had,” Steve blurted out. Now Bucky froze. “I wish I had kissed you. I wanted to. I always did. And let me know if I’m overstepping or assuming but… did you want to as well? Is that why you dreamt that?” Steve’s voice was so gentle and careful, like he didn’t want Bucky to explode. _

_        “Yes,” Bucky whispered. _

_        “And.. do you still want to?” _

_        “Yes.” _

_        “So.. can I kiss you?” _

_        “Yes.” _

 

       Despite Bucky being scared out of his mind, he put his fist in with all the other Avengers. He could do this. He looked up at his peers, his eyes eventually landing on Steve who gave him a quick smile. They broke off into their groups, so Bucky stood with Steve, Nebula, and Rhodey. The raccoon said something about not destroying his ship as he handed it to Steve. He looked around for a final time before everyone put their helmets on.

       “See you in a minute,” Natasha smiled before they all touched the pad on their arms and shrunk down. 

       The next 10 seconds were a blur of blues, oranges, purples and pinks as they drifted through literal time and space. They ended up in 2014 on Morag. Nebula and Rhodey left the ship with only a few words from Steve. Bucky hasn’t said much at all today.Steve pilots the ship, setting the course for Vormir before essentially setting it on autopilot.

       “Buck,” he says quietly, “You okay?”

       “This was the year we found each other again..” Bucky said, looking at him. Steve thought to himself before nodding.

       “Yeah, it is. Come here.” Steve opened his arms and Bucky walked into them, holding Steve’s waist. The ship was moving insanely fast so they probably only had about 10 minutes alone. “I love you,” Steve whispered.

       “I love you too. I can’t wait for all of this to be over.” They stood there until the ship signaled that it needed to be manually landed. Steve sighed and stepped back a little, leaning down to give Bucky a brief kiss.

       “It’ll be okay. Let’s get this over with,” Steve said. He landed the ship, the raccoon had given him a lesson on how to not wreck it. They got off, the air feeling surprisingly light. The planet seemed to be made of soft, white sand with thousands of bodies of water, all being the size of small lakes. 

       “Please tell me we don’t have to climb that mountain…” Bucky said, looking at it. They weren't even close to it. Steve just looked at him sadly. They knew that’s where it was. Bucky huffed and started trudging through the sand.

       It could’ve been taking them literal years. They had lost track of time. But they were almost to the top of the mountain. In front of them was a much more narrow path that led upwards. It seems to go through the mountain a bit as the rock was risen on both sides of the path. 

       “Almost there,” Steve said. “We’re almost done.”

       They turn towards the narrow path when a dark figure materializes. It’s face was covered by its hood and it’s cape blown out around it, trails of dark smoke coming from it. Steve had his shield ready and Bucky had two hands on his gun before the figure could get a word out.

       “Steven Grant Rogers, son of Joseph Rogers. James Buchanan Barnes, son of George Barnes. It has been a while,” a deep, chalky voice spoke. 

       “Who are you?” Steve said. The figure floated forward and raised his head so the light hit his face. Bucky could feel Steve tense up. “Johann Schmidt. Or should I call you the Red Skull now? I guess it has been quite a while. How did you get here?”

       “The power of the tesseract cast me out here. I guide others to a prize I can’t receive.” With that, he turned down the path. “What you seek is this way.”

       Steve looked at Bucky, lost. “What the hell is happening?” he said quietly. Bucky could look at him, just as confused as he was was. It wasn’t often that Steve and Bucky held hands, but right now, Bucky needed to stay grounded, so he gently slipped his hand into Steve’s. They go up the path, one in front of the other but with hands still locked together. At the top, it’s flat until the edge that Bucky could assume is a very steep drop after it.

       “What you seek is here, as is what you fear. To get the stone, you must lose that which you love. A soul for a soul,” the Red Skull says grimly. Bucky stops in his tracks and Steve tenses up again. A soul for a soul. 

       “Buck,” Steve starts, turning to face him.

       “It has to be me Steve,” Bucky says firmly. “I… I have so much blood on my hands, I’ve tortured people. I know you say it wasn’t my fault, and it wasn’t. But I still did it. You… you have to finish this and you have to go home and you have to save everyone and-”

       “Buck, stop.. I can’t.. I can’t just lose you again. Please, there has to be another way,” Steve says, cutting Bucky off. Steve drops his shield wraps his arms around Bucky. “Please Buck. You deserve better than this. Just… let me do it and you can go back with my shield and fight for something good and redeem yourself. You- please. Let me go instead.” Steve was trembling in Bucky’s arms. 

       “Steve..” Bucky said gently. “Look at me.” Steve lifted his eyes to meet Bucky’s. “Listen pal, I love you. I love you so much. You’re all I have left though. If you go throwing yourself off a cliff, I’ll lose the last person I have. The only person I’ve had. You have Nat, Tony, Sam, everyone else. That’s your family too. You still have to fight..” Bucky was never this gentle and all Steve could do was shake his head no with every word Bucky said. “Please Steve, don’t be your stupid stubborn self. Let me go. Please.”

       With that, Bucky took Steve face in his hands and kissed him hard. He put every amount amount of effort he had into this kiss. It was all he could do for Steve. After several minutes of kissing him, Bucky pulled back. 

       “I love you Steve, go save the world.” Bucky reached back and took a small electric device Natasha had shown him how to use and tossed it on to Steve. It activated instantly, electrocuting Steve and flattening him to the ground. Bucky took the opportunity to bolt to the edge, but he was only halfway there when he was knocked down by something. A shield.

       “Come on Steve, he mumbled. He looked back to see Steve on his feet, shaking off the feeling of being electrocuted. Bucky sped towards the cliff again and before he could think twice, he jumped.

       He only fell for only a second before his arm was caught. Steve held his metal arm with both hands. He was laying on the the ground above only his head, shoulders, and arms off the cliff. Bucky looked up at him sadly. 

      “Steve…. let go,” Bucky said steadily. 

      “No, not again. I can’t.” And he began lifting Bucky upwards. 

      “Steve, please don’t make me,” Bucky pleaded. But Steve was strong enough to lift Bucky over the edge and he knew that so he kept pulling him up. 

      Bucky reached up with right hand and stuck his thumb against a pad on the metal of his shoulder. Shuri designed the arm and in case of any type of emergency, she created the opportunity to remove it with his thumbprint. He never thought he’d have to use it. 

      All Bucky could say was “Don’t blame yourself for this. I love you.” Before Steve could understand what Bucky was doing, the arm unlocked and his body fell. 

      Steve was helpless. He weakly held the hand of the arm that was no longer attached to Bucky. And he watched Bucky fall. He watched Bucky hit the ground beneath him. He has watched Bucky die once again. Steve felt numb as the sky lit up and everything went blindingly white for a brief second. 

      Steve sat up in a pool of water. He was back on the planet’s surface with his shield attached to his arm. Next to him was Bucky’s arm. But there was no Bucky. Steve opened his fist and the orange stone with a bright glow laid there. 

      He felt numb. He couldn’t even cry because it seemed like he couldn’t feel anything. It would hit him later. He would cry once all of this was over and he had to sleep alone again. He stood up, gripping the wrist of the metal arm and trudged towards the ship. He set the arm and his shield in the ship and left it before he shrunk it back down like Rocket has taught him, putting it in his pocket carefully. He takes a long look at the mountain in the distance before pressing a few buttons on the pad on his arm and shrinking down and floating through time again. 

      In a few seconds, he was in the compound again surrounded by the other avengers. “Did this actually work?” Scott said with a laugh. For a moment, everyone spoke with cheerful tones before they saw Steve. And didn’t see Bucky. 

      “Steve..” Natasha said gently. “Where’s Bucky?” Natasha was the only other person Bucky had gotten closer to in the past 5 years. He was nowhere near as close to her as he was to Steve, but they were still friends. Natasha still cared about him. 

      Steve couldn’t reply. What could he say? Instead he held up the stone before handing it to Tony, and leaving the platform. He went out into the yard, aware he was being followed. He took the ship from his pocket and set it down in the grass before backing away and growing it to the correct size. 

     “Steve?” Natasha said from behind him but he opened the doors to the ship and walked inside. He sat on the seat next to the arm. His arm. Natasha stopped in her tracks. “Oh, Steve,” she whispered. 

      “A soul for a soul. The idiot jumped off the cliff but I grabbed him. And I guess the arm was designed to be able to come off, because he released it. And I watched him fall… again.”

     Steve’s explanation hardly made sense but Natasha sat next to him and put her head on his shoulder. 

      “He deserved better. He loved you and this was his way of showing it. Letting you live,” she said gently. Then she lifted her head and looked him in the eyes. “Don’t let him die for nothing Steve. We have to finish this. I’m sure you’re in pain, it hurts me too. But we still have work to do. So come on, we have to go.”

     Steve took a breath and nodded. They got up, and Steve went to his room first. He put Bucky’s arm on the bed. He didn’t know what to do with it but he sure as hell wasn't gonna throw it away. Steve looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes then trailing to the bed in the reflection. 

     Bucky was not going to die for nothing. 


End file.
